House Minority Leader Addresses Poverty

Air Date:01/14/2011

By Kealey Bultena

The leader of the House Democrats says he doesn’t come to the Capitol to haggle over funding. Mintority leader Bernie Hunhoff says lawmakers have other important issues to discuss.

"I wish we could focus on some things like poverty in South Dakota. Governor Daugaard, to his credit, in his State of the State address, he talked about reservation poverty. It’s a fact that we have four of the ten poorest counties are here within our borders. South Dakota wage earners earn the lowest salaries in the USA. We’ve got state employees that are eligible for food stamps and Medicaid. It’s just a really dire situation. And I think if we had addressed poverty more aggressively in previous years, we probably wouldn’t have the budget crunch we have today. So it’s something we need to address, and sadly it’s probably going to be put on the back burner this session," Hunhoff says.

Hunhoff says he would also like to focus on delivering the best possible education to children. He says keeping students in school would also help lower the workforce shortage.

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